Tag: memorable

Recently I was asked to say why business cards are important and how to create a great business card. In a recent post, you can read about the pitfalls you should avoid Top 5 business card mistakes. Here I will provide a list of 10 top tips to ensure that your business card looks the part and works for you.

Make it memorable. Flash your card to someone for 5 seconds or so. Can they recall something memorable about the card, such as colour, logo, text etc?

Make your cards a standard size. Yes, you can create a non-standard size or shape. It will be both expensive to produce and may not fit into a cardholder or pocket. You can ignore this advice but you need to know what you are doing.

Use good quality card. If you use thin card or paper then you will not impress the people that you give it to. The card will not look good (if at all) for very long.

Design using CMYK. This is a tip for those designing their own cards. Please do not be tempted by all of the different colours that your design software might produce. You might notice that when you look at a design on your screen and print it out you see slightly different colours. This is because on the screen we see an image made out of Red, Green and Blue (RGB). When you print you see an image produced using 4 or 6 colours. Printers usually print using (up to) 4 colour printing (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). Designers will also use Pantone colours. You can convert between all of these systems but remember printers will use CMYK, the 4 primary colours for pigments. So if someone else does your design, ask for a sample that uses CMYK.

Allow room for bleeding. You should ensure that images other than a logo or photograph extend over the whole face of the card. To ensure that there is no unwanted white border, make sure that the image (or solid colour) extends into the bleed area (usually around 3mm). This allows for any inaccuracy in trimming. You should also be aware of the protected area within the card boundary so that none of your text is cut off!

Allow some white space. Having said that we want a nice memorable image or log which covers the card, you should ensure that there is some white space somewhere. Many people like to add a note or to after meeting you. Place this on the back of the card if you like.

Employ a designer. Yes you can do this yourself (I have) but it might take many years and several iterations. Find an expert and you will save time.

Images must be of good quality. You should ensure that all images are greater than 300 dpi or else they will look grainy when printed onto your nice new cards. Please also check that you use either royalty-free graphics or that you have the required license.

Proofread everything. I know that you will check but get someone else to do it too. Once the print button is pressed you will have to pay to rectify any mistakes.

Make sure that your shiny new card is congruent with your business. Are you one nice consistent brand, do you believe in what your card says or shows?

Take care of the above and you will stand a good chance of creating a great business card. The image shown at the top of this post is a great example. It also has the advantage that being a stand-up design, people will naturally play with it and hence notice more of the writing on it.

I was asked to provide some guidance on how to create a memorable business card and also to highlight my top do’s and don’ts. So here are my own ideas for the top 5 business card mistakes.

Many designers will give you a long list of design principles. Before you get that far you really do need to satisfy some fairly simple usability criteria.

But before we get even that far let’s take a look at what your business card should do. It must be consistent with your branding and vision and be memorable (for the right reasons). So before I reveal my list why don’t you try the following.

Take your business card and show it to a) someone you already know b) someone you have just met at a networking event (best explain this bit first) and then hide the face that you showed to them and ask what they remember about it. Don’t show the card for more than 5 seconds. My guess is that the person you showed the card too will most likely remember nothing at all.

Here my top 5 list of the mistakes people make that you should avoid:

Make it memorable for the wrong reasons. Just take a look at the picture at the start of this post. It is a rubber business card. Novel, yes but completely impractical. If you need two hands to stretch it how do you call the number?

Use poor quality paper or card. Thin stationery is excellent for folding in half or tearing to put underneath the leg of a wobbly table. You will not impress the receiver with the poor quality and the card will get dog-eared very quickly. You should not be tempted to print cards onto materials such as plastic. They are novel but the receiver will probably leave it in the glove compartment as they make excellent ice scrapers or implements for breaking and entering!

Make it too big for a cardholder or pocket. If someone gave you a card that was too big, what would you do with it? Enough said.

Missing contact details. I have seen cards with no contact details at all. Make sure that you have at the very least your name, email address, telephone number and website details. You can also add social media details if you wish. Please do not waste valuable real estate on printing QX codes. Most people will not scan them. Use the space wisely.

Says who you are, not what you do. Your card says ‘Fred Smith, CEO’. So what? If you are an accountant, say so either by keeping it simple or saying you help people to pay less tax. For a larger company, then at least say what your company does.

This may sound a little negative but please keep an eye out for my blog article on the top things that you should do to create a great business card for yourself.

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